I’m Not Nosy. You’re Nosy.
I have been trying to spend less time on social media lately. I know that checking Instagram or Facebook multiple times a day is getting in the way of more productive activities, like bathing myself or doing the work I am being paid to do. I also know that there’s no benefit to me constantly checking these sites. I can easily lose 25 minutes as I head down a wormhole and attempt to find out, for instance, how many kids my high school P.E. teacher ended up having (three, in case you were curious, and they all have curly hair.)
So why do I keep doing it? Well, for one, I’m a procrastinator. I’m also REALLY nosy. I want to know what’s going on in people’s lives, even if I have never met them. Over a year ago, while I was walking past two women down at the beach, I heard one of them ask the other, “what’s your relationship like with your mom?” I’m still upset I didn’t get to hear the answer. What IS her relationship like with her mom?! I like to think I’m nosy because I am a writer who has found that the best dialogue is overheard and transcribed, not written from scratch. I like to think that, but it’s not true. I’m just nosy.
My husband didn’t use to be nosy, but I accidentally taught him to be nosy when we were dating. I would point out another couple at the restaurant and ask him to guess what number date they were on. (If you don’t already play this game, I highly recommend it!) You can usually make a decent guess based solely on the couple’s body language, but if you want to make an educated guess, you have to listen in on their conversation.
Ever since my husband saw how entertaining it could be to eavesdrop, he has helped with my eavesdropping efforts. In order to properly eavesdrop at a restaurant, you can’t just sit there quietly. If you do that, the people at the table next to you will know that you are listening to their conversation. Instead, you have to ask each other questions to which you already know the answer, and then slowly respond.
The problem with eavesdropping is that once you figure out how to do it, you realize how often other people are eavesdropping on your conversations. Three years ago, Tim and I had what we now refer to as the Epic Pizza Baby Fight of 2013. We were at a small pizza restaurant in Long Beach where the tables are so close together, your butt inevitably knocks something over on your neighbor’s table if you try to head to the bathroom. We were having a nice meal when I broached the question of how many kids we should have. For some reason, I felt it was VERY important to decide this question before we went home, and the correct answer to the question was three. My husband said he wanted to “take it one kid at a time,” but likely wanted two. Things escalated quickly, and before we knew it, I was crying. I don’t love crying in public, but I’ve done it enough in my lifetime to no longer be embarrassed about it. But I was embarrassed because, as much as everyone at the tables next to us were pretending not to listen, I knew we had a rapt audience.
As a result of the Epic Pizza Baby Fight of 2013, I have changed nothing. I am just as nosy as I’ve always been, and I’m still trying to convince my husband that we should have three kids. As for my efforts to check social media less, I didn’t check any sites when I woke up today, and didn’t start obsessively checking sites until 10:30am. So yeah, I’m doing great.
Originally posted March 28, 2017 on Medium: https://medium.com/@leightondavis_20191/im-not-nosy-you-re-nosy-906b72a087f6.